A deaf girl today told of her fears of walking the Teesside streets after being brutally mugged by a gang of thugs.

Samantha Fuller, 19, from Middlesbrough, was attacked and repeatedly kicked in the head as she walked home from a night out.

She was knocked unconscious after a gang of up to eight people followed her down an alley off Linthorpe Road at 11.30pm.

The former King's Manor pupil said she is worried about going on a night out now after the incident which saw her 19-year-old male friend also punched and mugged.

Samantha wears a prosthetic ear due to a condition called hemifacial microsoma, a deformity caused by underdevelopment of one side of the face.

The prosthetic ear was damaged in the attack when a teenage girl kicked her and her hearing aid was also lost during the vicious assault.

She said: "I have been affected by this.

"They pushed me into a thorn bush and I had to spend some time picking thorns out of my skin and clothes.

"I never thought it would happen. I thought we would have been safe.

"We'd just been on a night out at The Crown but I'm nervous about going back there now."

Samantha and her friend had been followed down a side road near the Camel's Hump pub when she was set upon on July 6.

She added: "They had asked for a fag and I said I didn't have one but they followed us.

"I was pushed into a thorn bush and one of the girls started kicking me.

"I was unconscious so I'm not sure how many times it happened but I must have been kicked five or six times.

"My friend was punched as well. I'd say the people who did it were aged 19 to 21.

"When they kicked me in the head they must have knocked my hearing aid out so I was panicking a bit when they took me to hospital."

The former Middlesbrough College student said the girl who attacked her had demanded her mobile phone although she refused to give it to her.

Samantha's 19-year-old friend was rugby-tackled to the ground and punched in the back of the head by two men from the gang before his mobile phone was stolen along with a wallet with cash and cards inside it.

Samantha's facial condition means her jaw is underdeveloped on one side which caused one police officer to think she had suffered a broken jaw in the attack.

Both Samantha and her friend were taken to James Cook University Hospital where she was treated for a black eye and cuts and bruises while the man was treated for cuts and swelling on the back of his head.

The girl who attacked Samantha is described as blonde and wearing a pale tracksuit.